The composition was executed from where today is essentially McGill University's H.M. Wong Pavillion, looking toward University Street (today Rue University). A number of students have the McGill scarlet sweaters of the day. On the other side of University are some McGill fraternity houses, including Walbrae Place, which until 1893 was home of Montreal's Harrington family. Around that time, Sir William and Lady Dawson, purchased the Harrington home, which was immediately adjacent to theirs (the buildings were actually connected with an archway over a lane), with Walbrae Place becoming a home for their daughter, Anna, her husband, and their eight children. These buildings of important Canadian heritage have been replaced by unremarkable apartments and the only physical evidence of their existence is a street sign on Rue University with the name Pl. Walbrae, indicating a short road which runs into the campus towards the H.M. Wong Pavillion.

The original Dawson family residence, where the family lived until the late 1870s, is now McGill University's Dawson Hall, part of the Arts Building. On the verso of Autumn, Walbrae Place, Montreal, Little provided a map and innocently misspelled the name of the house, "Wallbrea Place".